Myrtle Emily [Grigg] Deamer
MEG
1922-2006

In late 1962 she decided that since her family was not interested in the Faith she would return to N.S.W., so loaded Tony, 12, and Bryn, 8, into the familys Fiat 1100cc station wagon with a tiny 8ft long caravan attached and set out to drive across the country. In those days the only road across Australia was a two lane dirt road stretching some 1,500 miles from Coolgardie, W.A. to Port Augusta, South Australia. She got a little south of Widgimalootha, W.A. when the car died. After an exiting week, repairs were performed and she drove back to Kalgoorlie where the car/caravan combination was loaded onto the Trans-Australian Railroad, and Meg and the boys took the train to Port August. From there she continued her driving adventure finally arriving at the Bahá'í Temple in Mona Vale, an northern suburb of Sydney.

She was welcomed warmly and for a short time she and the boys become the relieving caretakers of the temple, giving the then caretakers a much needed break. For the next year or so, parking the caravan in the back yard of friends, or various caravan parks, she found work, as Tony and Bryn went to a couple of different schools. But always the Temple was the centre of the family life, and she would always say that she would be most happy to just be able to sweep the leaves off the temple steps. One day in 1963, Bryn just remembers being at his school desk, when the principal appeared, and told him his mum had come for him, and that he should pack is desk and things and say goodbye [ultimately, Bryn changed schools 13 times in 12 years - 6 times it was to return to the same Perth school!]

Back into the Fiat they headed back across Australia by road and train, and reaching Perth and turning into the street where her sister, Judy, lived, was greeted with an enormous thump as the flywheel sheared off the back of the crankshaft, and the combination rolled to a stop in front of the her sister home.

Finding work she started buying a small home at 5 Oban Rd., City Beach, part of the Games Village built to accommodate the participants of the 1962 Commonwealth games. She kept the home even when in 1965 she remarried, to Bob Lefroy of Waterloo, WA, and left Perth with Tony and Bryn in to take up life as the wife of a well-respected dairy farmer in Waterloo, just outside of Bunbury. But she did not fit the mold, and the limitation her married life imposed on her ability to serve the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh led her to separate once again and move to Bunbury for the period of the 100th anniversary of the Proclamation of Bahá'u'lláh, so she could be free arrange and advertise meetings associated with that event.

At the conclusion of the Centenary year she returned to Perth and she and Bob Lefroy were divorced. Returning to Perth also ensured that Tony could continue his motor-mechanics apprenticeship, which was under threat due to the illegal employment practices being conducted by the vehicle agency where he was apprenticed. Since his family moved to Perth he was allowed to transfer his apprenticeship to the Public Works Department.,